When entertaining guests at home it is often desirable to provide special items in the home to make the guests more comfortable, and create a more desirable atmosphere than is typical otherwise. The present invention, in the presently preferred embodiment, provides clean disposable paper hand towels for guests to use after hand washing, in a fashionably designed container that can be mounted on the available towel bar currently in ones home.
For guests, standard-sized cloth towels or smaller-sized hand towels usually replace the homeowner's normal everyday towels. Rolled-up or folded cloth hand towels may be displayed in a basket on the sink counter-top. The wall-mounted paper hand towel dispensers used commercially by many businesses and in various public restrooms, are not used in the household. Paper towels described as “Buffet/Guest” towels also exist, but one must grasp one from a stack and unfold it—with wet hands! Therefore, no truly good guest hand towel (cloth or paper) exists—all require some degree of work such as washing and folding, or grasping from a stack and unfolding using wet hands. Unfortunately, with cloth towels, one is often unsure whether or not the towel has been used previously, as only a very limited number of them are usually provided for use. The present invention, in a presently preferred embodiment, places a stack of disposable hand towels near the available towel bar that exists in the home, using a container with specially designed hangers. Therefore, the present invention can conveniently provide paper hand towels designed for one time use at the towel bar, where towels are normally placed.
It should be noted that some towel bars, especially of the round bar design, may be placed at slightly different distances from a wall, as well as have different diameters of a rod. The hanger opening therefore may be an unusual shape—not fully rectangular or circular. The hanger opening in the presently preferred embodiment of the invention is an irregular shape with straight and curved sections to accommodate various towel bars, whether they be of a square or round bar design. The extended portion of the hangers that extend beyond the opening for the towel bar and opposite the container, come near the wall when hung, and aid in preventing rotation of the container by bumping up against the wall when a sheeted cleaning medium is dispensed from the container at an angle from the wall. Additionally, the pair of these extensions (as shown) along with the towel bar and wall provide for a somewhat protected “shelf” for temporary storage of items such as keys, cell phone, paperback book, etcetera when the sink and hand towels are to be used.
The present invention provides a dispenser that can be easily placed over a towel bar for use by guests to a home, and easily removed from the towel bar after the guests leave. The dispenser can be stored for a future gathering of guests, if there are remaining sheeted cleaning media, such as paper hand towels. Note that the dispenser goes where towels normally go, and does not take up counter-top space. It also does not require fasteners such as adhesives, straps, or screws to affix the dispenser to the towel bar. When not in use, the dispenser can be removed from the towel bar and the hangers placed within a cavity in the base section that attaches them to the container. The dispenser is then more suitable for storing. Additionally, attractive colors and designs may be printed or placed upon the container to make it esthetically pleasing for bathroom display.
Besides paper hand towels, the dispenser may dispense other forms of sheeted cleaning media, such as facial tissues and wipes. The sheeted cleaning media can be supplied either on a roll, or in an individually sheeted and folded form. The individually sheeted and folded form is presently preferred.
Further advantages of this invention will become apparent from a consideration of the drawings and ensuing description.